The seven-day average of daily new COVID cases and deaths keep falling, but there’s reason to believe those counts are artificially low given that hospitalizations, severe cases and test positivity rates keep rising. The daily average of cases fell to 58,354 on Thursday, down 9% from two weeks ago and down from a recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve, according to a New York Times tracker. The daily average for deaths fell 5% in two weeks to a three-week low of 355. The NYT noted that case and death counts may be undercounted as officials tracking that data take vacation for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, but hospitalization data is not typically affected by holiday breaks. And the daily average of COVID-related hospitalizations rose 3% in two weeks to 41,620, the most since mid-August, while severe cases, as measured by those in intensive-care units (ICUs), climbed 10% in two weeks to a five-month high of 5,080. The test positivity rate held around four-month highs above 14%, and has jumped 18% in two weeks.
